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'Must unite against violence'

Writer and poet Fatima Bhutto is back, this time with her debut fiction novel that is set in Pakistan’s tribal region, and has women as its central characters. Fatima gives an insight into the troubled times and people of her country.

What is your new book The Shadow Of The Crescent Moon about? It’s the story of two women—Mina and Samarra. It begins in a town called Mir Ali in Waziristan, which is in Pakistan’s tribal area, and takes place over one morning as three brothers journey towards a mosque on Eid. In our part of the world, millions of women suffer at the hands of the system, whether it is the family, society, community or the political violence. They are the first people to get hit. But they are also great survivors. It is courageous how they choose to keep going. Certain places and incidents (in the book) were based on my experiences. But the characters developed on their own.

This was your first work of fiction. How different was this experience compared to your last book, Songs Of Blood And Sword, which was a memoir? You have to be a lot more forgiving with fiction. With journalism or nonfiction, you have to know the answer at the end and you have to decide whether a particular thing is good or bad and you have one voice—your own. In fiction, it was nice to have the story in different voices. It didn’t have to be one woman’s suffering or one woman’s story. I enjoyed it a lot.

Your story is based in Mir Ali, a town in violence-ravaged northern Pakistan, which you toured as a journalist. What kind of experiences did you have there? There is an impression that these villages are dangerous areas where people are cruel to each other. Certainly, right now, they are in a lot of conflict. But the last time I travelled there, in 2007, I didn’t fi nd that to be true. They have a beautiful sense of community and they trust each other implicitly. Everybody knows each other. You have real freedom there. Also, the women over there are very fascinating. Most people think that Pakistani women in general and especially those in the tribal areas are (treated as) secondary. But they are not. They are loud and boisterous! I haven’t visited those places recently.

In Songs Of Blood And Sword you accused Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari for your father Mir Murtaza’s death. How did life change after that? I certainly didn’t feel more scared after than I did before. But life did change for me because I had fulfilled the promise I had made to my father—to cover his life and his story. Writing that gave me the freedom to write The Shadow Of The Crescent Moon.

How do your books impact the people in your country, especially the youth? I hope that if it has any impact, it is on the newer voices of Pakistan. We don’t have the baggage of the old generation. We want harmony, peace, connections between people. When you look at Pakistani books that are coming out now, that’s what they all say. They don’t want to be stuck in old ideas.

You’ve always been against dynastic politics in your country. What has held you back from becoming a part of Pakistan’s politics? When I say I was against dynastic politics, it was always in Pakistan’s case. In India, you have a transparent system. After five years, if you don’t want that representative, you can vote for somebody else. Dynasty doesn’t matter then. In Pakistan, we can’t reach the people who rule us. We can’t point out mistakes or injustice. I always wanted to be a writer. I feel lucky to be doing my dream job and I wouldn’t trade that with anything.

Pakistan and India score very low when it comes to the safety of women and children. How can that menace be tackled? We in Pakistan were closely following news of the gangrape in Delhi and Mumbai. In south Asia, for something to count as violence against women, it has to be physical and brutal. But in the subcontinent, every single day, there is violence of all kinds against women. When one woman stands up and complains, there are a hundred people telling her to shut up and sit down. We have to start having open discussions about it. What’s worse is that it is not only done by men, it is also done by women to each other. I used to work with women prisoners in Pakistan. In the men’s prison, teachers would come and conduct writing, reading and computer classes. In the women’s prison, there was no such activity. I asked the jail warden for the reason. She asked me, ‘Which family will send their daughter to work in a jail?’ I said, ‘What’s the shame? You’re helping your sisters.’ We must work together as women. If we don’t fight together, who’s going to fight for us?

When Malala was nominated to receive the Nobel prize, critics said that she only hit the spotlight because the western media picked her story. Malala is very brave. What makes her different is that she is a new kind of Pakistani voice. She comes from a small town and a middle class background. It’s very important to have these kind of voices. I hope she is given the freedom to stay outside of the political sphere.

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